SPIRIT OF '55: Just the therapy that was needed (From Warrington Guardian)

SPIRIT OF '55: Just the therapy that was needed

11:10am Sunday 17th February 2013 in Wolves news

AFTER signing a few of my books in the club shop on Friday evening, unfortunately I wasn’t able to watch the game.

Instead I headed up the motorway on a youth work residential. As reasons for missing a Wire match go, working for Warrington Youth Club to inspire a group of young people to achieve is a pretty good one.

So instead of a match report this week, I’ll write about being a Wire fan in general.

I’m sure all of us at some stage have missed matches we would otherwise had gone to, for various reasons like holidays, weddings, birthday parties, work.

I wonder if there are any extravagant reasons out there among you for missing a game.

No matter what you are doing instead, you know you’re obsessed when one question keeps going around in your head – ‘I wonder how Wire are getting on?’

With the ever developing communication technology of the modern world, it is often easy to find a way of answering that question.

It wasn’t too long ago that a holiday abroad meant either an expensive phone call home from a phone box to find out the result, or waiting about two days for an English paper published on the required day, even then you would often be left fuming that Rugby League results weren’t included.

Depending on how remote this area is that I’m going to, I might well be faced with a flashback to those times if phone apps, texting home and internet on our phones are rendered useless by lack of signal.

People often mock sports fans along the lines of telling them their obsession is immature and pointless.

Maybe staying young and acknowledging some things in life don’t have much of a ‘point’, is an example of the great things about being a sports fan.

You’ll meet some people who you have little in common with and would struggle to talk to them, until you realise they follow the same sport as you.

Having something to get excited about, dream about and believe in can’t be a bad thing, nor can having those moments of pure escapism when any stresses or worries about life can be put to one side.

Watching sport can be therapeutic, hopefully by the time you’re reading this Wolves will have provided you some lupine therapy by having beaten Catalan.

Spirit of '55